The reseeding blend is a combination of oats, slender wheatgrass, bottlebrush squirreltail and Sandberg bluegrass. The blend is available for anyone to buy at Sharp Bros. Seed Co., sharpseed.com; Pawnee Buttes Seed Inc., pawneebuttesseed.com; and Arkansas Valley Seed, avseeds.com.

How to help

The volunteer coordinators request that people register before participating. For more information about how to sign up, visit wlrv.org or voc.org.

More than 900 people will be working over the next two months to restore sections of the 6,000 acres devastated by the Fourmile Fire, and none of them is getting paid for it.

March 19 will be the first of 12 volunteer work days scheduled to reseed 500 acres along roadways. The rehabilitation efforts are coordinated by Boulder County Parks and Open Space, the Wildlands Restoration Volunteers, the Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado and hundreds of good Samaritans from the Boulder area.

"The basic task is going to be spreading seed and raking it in," said Ed Self, executive director and founder of Wildlands Restoration Volunteers. "What makes the project very challenging ... is the access: getting the volunteers to remote locations. The terrain in many areas is very steep and rocky."

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Though the work may be strenuous, the volunteers needed to do it have not been difficult to find. Most of the slots scheduled for volunteers have already been filled.

The Fourmile Fire scorched 6,100 acres and destroyed 169 homes west of Boulder in September.

"The tragedy really affected everyone," said Erica Christensen, plant ecologist and volunteer coordinator for Boulder County Parks and Open Space. "All kinds of people really want to give back, and this is one really concrete way that they can help the landowners in this area."

Sue Anderson, director of programs for Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, said people are being "very generous with their time in wanting to help with this project."

The volunteer work begins the first stage of restoration efforts planned in October by a multi-agency task force. Boulder County Parks and Open Space, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Natural Resources Conservation Service -- acting on behalf of private landowners -- "met very intensively, everyday for a couple of weeks, trying to hammer out this very specialized plan," Christensen said.

Key components of that plan include an aerial mulching campaign, undertaken by hired aircraft, and the all-volunteer reseeding project.

The volunteers will spread a blend of three native grass species -- slender wheatgrass, bottlebrush squirreltail and Sandberg bluegrass -- and oats, which germinate quickly and are commonly used for a cover crop, according to Christensen.

The reseeding and raking task may be menial, but the potential financial savings for Boulder County are considerable.

Self, of Wildlands Restoration Volunteers, estimates the value of the combined efforts to be roughly $130,000, assuming weather doesn't interfere with the work schedule. He acknowledges that March and April are often Boulder's snowiest months of the year, which may cause cancellations.

An AmeriCorps team of 11 people will also assist for eight weeks, focusing on reseeding those areas more difficult to access.

The project will help with erosion control -- although to a much smaller degree than the mulching campaign -- by seeding roughly 100 feet out along roadsides, but the main purpose will be to prevent the spread of non-native plants.

Whole Foods and Sunflower Farmers Market are among the organizations that will donate food for major work crew days. The California Pizza Kitchen is donating two free meals a week for the AmeriCorps volunteers, who will be housed for free by the Boulder Outlook Hotel for two months.

"We're really, really grateful to these vendors who understand and want to help," said Mary Eldred, volunteer manager for Wildlands Restoration Volunteers.

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